Disadvantages to knowing your students well

Well, there's Bias.

When students are no longer anonymous to you- just numbers- you have to watch out for bias.

Students are relatively consistent with the level of their work throughout the semester. The problem lies when I realize that such-and-such is a B student then I unconsciously grade to a B. I become biased that such-and-such is a B student and then it becomes self-perpetuating.

As hard as I try to fight bias, it is always lurking. I guess I could get credit for acknowledging that I have biases and doing everything I know how to prevent them. But they are still there.

Other areas of bias I recognize
1. Cheating- I'm not sure if this is really a BAD bias, but once a student gets caught in my class for cheating, they will be scrutinized constantly.

2. Rude behavior in class- If a student texts constantly during lecture, or some other obnoxious behavior, they seem to get put into the "disengaged" category.

3. My general feeling of "got it". If a student does poorly in class, or more importantly, just CAN.NOT seem to follow directions repeatedly to save their life, I write them off as someone who's not going to make it.

4. Spelling- if you can't spell (especially in spell-check-able word processor documents!) it creates an overall impression that you aren't careful or uninterested in doing well.

5. You mess up my title repeatedly. More here.

Now, some of these may make a grain sense. But what I really want to avoid is preventing each student from having a clean slate at the beginning of each assignment, or worse, grading their assignment subjectively up or down according to my unconscious opinion of them.

For example, on an 15-point essay question, if given the same answer from a student who I thought was a pretty good student vs. a student who texts in class and doesn't seem to pay attention or follow directions, I could imagine (there's no way to test this) that I could give the texting student a point less. That's simply not fair.

The reverse is also true. If a student shows up in my office weekly, and I really want them to succeed, for the same answer I could imagine giving the student I was "rooting for" a point more for the same answer as a student who I never saw outside of lecture periods. Also not fair.

I'm human, and recognize that there is no way to completely eliminate bias in grading. It's true life is not fair. But I really want to be AS "JUST" AS POSSIBLE in the classroom.

I know the students well. By midterms at the latest, I know that names of every one of my students. I also have probably formed my biases by then, too.

Ways I have figured out so far to combat bias

1. Forced Anonymity. I give essays on tests. Because of this subjective part, I design the test such that I can't see the student's name before I grade the whole exam. This works pretty well. However, at the end of a two-semester course I can recognize some unusual handwriting. I try to cover names when grading worksheets or papers with the name on the front, but this is not 100% successful.

2. One-size-fits all- no exceptions. For example, if you miss a quiz, there are no make-ups. I don't care if its excused or not. You can make up the quiz by the longer alternative assignment, like everyone- no exceptions. This prevents me from: a. listening to some pretty crazy excuses and b. treating people I imagine as being less responsible with less mercy than other students. It's rigid, but it seems fairer.

3. My natural forgetfulness. Luckily for most students I don't walk around with their grade in my head. So if they bombed the last exam, I probably don't remember that. If I see them in the hall, I will greet them just like I did before they bombed my test. This really only pertains to the conscious part of the equation, not really eliminating many unconscious biases.

4. Your suggestion here.